


Somnium

by ephemeralfangirl



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Dream Sharing, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-20 02:23:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10652970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralfangirl/pseuds/ephemeralfangirl
Summary: After being fired from CatCo, Kara gets some help to find her way.





	Somnium

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this the entry for the dreams prompt of the Supercat week 3.

Alex’s laughter rang loud and clear behind her. It was a free and joyous sound the likes of which she had rarely heard coming from her sister. A small smile tugged at Kara’s lips and she tried hard to pretend the edges weren’t wistful, a little envious. She nodded her thanks when the new bartender put a fresh drink in front of her. Kara looked at the martini glass and it rankled in a lonely place inside. It wasn’t as good as the ones at Noonan’s, but it didn’t matter, she hadn’t ordered it for the taste. She had ordered it for the connection to something she had been forced to leave behind. Mon-el had looked at her askance when she’d ordered something that would have no effect on them and she couldn’t be bothered to explain that she was ordering a memory rather than a drink. She had made for poor company apparently and he’d found some friends to play pool with, forgetting her existence until it suited him to remember. She was more OK with it than she felt she should be. 

Kara took the toothpick with the olives between her thumb and forefinger and she wondered where the angry, driven girl she used to be had gone. She took one of the olives between her teeth and slid it down the stick. She hated olives.

“That glass isn’t going to give you the answer to life, Kara Zor-El.”

Kara looked up sharply and turned to one of the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. She seemed too beautiful to be real, with an odd shimmer to her features. The purple hair tugged at her consciousness, but Kara shook her head.

“I’m sorry, you got the wrong person, my name is Danvers.”

The woman smiled kindly. “Maybe to these lower beings, but I know you Kara, Daughter of Zor El.”

With her breath stuck in her throat, Kara looked at the woman a little more closely, there was a hint of a memory just out of her reach. “Have we met?”

“In another life, we did, Child of the stars. Your light has dimmed since then. What troubles you?”

She didn’t even know where to begin so Kara shook her head. She looked closer at the woman, watched gold swirl in pale lilac irises and she finally understood. “It was at the market in Argo City. We shared fruit.”

“You did me a kindness beyond what you can imagine that day, let me return the favour,” the woman said, taking Kara’s hand in hers. She traced symbols on the skin of her inner wrist. They glowed blue and Kara yanked her arm back.

“What did you do?” panicked, Kara wiped at her skin, but there was nothing there, just the memory of light impressed on her retina until it disappeared. She looked up into the otherworldly eyes and only found benevolence.

“I’m showing you the path, Kara Zor-El. Your loneliness can be assuaged. I just gave you the means to find your way. Kryptonians never believed in… Soulmates as humans call them. It brought the end of your world. Too much practicality, too many thoughts until you burned yourselves up. Open yourself up to it, Daughter of Krypton. Follow the way and tomorrow you’ll know where to find yours.”

The smile was back and the woman leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Kara’s forehead. She smelled like wild flowers long forgotten and Kara felt warm and sleepy. Without a word, she turned and walked out of the bar, leaving a speechless Kara blinking slowly behind her.

“Kara, you alright?” She blinked at the door before turning to her sister.

“Yeah, I’m… Uh, I think I’m going to go home,” she rose from her seat and tossed some bills on the bar.

“Do you need me to walk you home? You look strange.”

Kara shook her head, stepping backwards toward the door. “I’m OK, stay with Maggie. Have fun.” 

She turned and walk away quickly, rubbing her hand over her wrist. The skin didn’t feel different, but she did. She felt light-headed, a little sleepy and way out of her depth. This wasn’t how she had expected her evening to go. This wasn’t … she didn’t know what this was. It fit right in with her life these days.

She remembered the woman from the market. Kara must have been 7 or 8 when they had met. Kara had been distracted away from her father by the flower stalls. They were from another moon and she had never seen any like them. She’d stepped toward the end of the row and she had seen the woman. Ethereal, still too beautiful, she had been sitting behind a stall, her head against the door, her face pale and clammy. People had walked around her as if they couldn’t see her, but there had been something that had caught Kara’s attention. She had looked at the purple hair, made darker by Krypton’s red sun and she had been fascinated. She’d walked closer to the woman and had asked her if she was alright. The lilac eyes had opened, unfocused until they’d latched onto the basket of berries Kara had held. Unsure what to do, Kara had offered it to the woman. She’d taken a few with a shaking hand and Kara had handed her the whole thing. She’d taken it gratefully, quickly eating the berries until her fingers and lips were stained blue. She’d reached the last one when Kara’s father had called her away. The woman had reached into her hair and had undone one of the flowers entwined in the purple locks and had given it to Kara. It had felt warm in her palm and its perfume had been crisp, fresh and she’d waved goodbye before joining her father, her new friend seemingly unseen. 

She’d put the flower by her bed, the scent lulling her to sleep and she’d had the most vivid dreams in her life. They’d almost been too much as if she’d been living them rather than them being impulses of her brain. The next morning she’d put the flower in a press book, almost afraid of it. It wasn’t a good omen for this night. By the time she got to her apartment, Kara’s limbs were heavy, her eyes drooping. She managed to stay awake long enough to get into her pjs and under the covers. 

Kara closed her eyes and when she blinked, she was in CatCo Plaza. It was weird though because the city looked deserted. Not apocalypse empty, just free of people. Which was lucky considering she was standing only in the boxer and t-shirt she went to bed with. Kara looked around and a light coming from her wrist lit up the night. She looked at the symbols and they seemed to be pulsating. Unsure what to do, she walked toward the street and the light dimmed. She turned back toward the building and it glowed stronger. 

“Alright, this isn’t weird at all…”

She walked into the building and the doors to Cat’s private elevator opened for her. Kara frowned as she reluctantly stepped in. This was wrong. No one had used Cat’s elevator since the day she left. It smelled of dust, disuse and a lingering hint of her perfume. Kara was pretty sure the last was in her head, but it was enough to make her heart hurt. 

The doors closed behind her and it started without her touching any of the buttons. She watched the numbers get higher and higher until they stopped at the 40th floor. The doors opened as Kara considered staying in. Even without the hustle and bustle of life at CatCo, it hurt to look into the offices she’d called home for so long. She missed it. Working full time at the DEO wasn’t exactly her dream. She had struggled to have a life, to be Kara Danvers: Reporter. Now that she had been fired, it felt as if the cape was all she was. There was nothing else. Even if she was going through the motions of her life, it wasn’t hers anymore.

With a deep sigh, Kara walked out, the floor cold under her bare feet. She walked to the pink jaguar and gave it a stroke. She could remember staring at that feline from her desk, trying to puzzle out her boss and why, if she hated cat puns so much, she’d have a giant one in her lobby. Whenever she thought about Cat, she still felt just as lost trying to figure her out. Not that she was here for Kara to try.

She didn’t know what she was doing here. 

As soon as the thought came to her, the light coming from her wrist blinked. She extended her arm in front of her like a compass, waiting to see when it was strongest. She turned toward the CEO’s office and it shone the brightest it had so far. With dread filling her soul, she walked into the glass office. This wasn’t a good idea. Being here was painful. She had been able to handle it while James was in attendance because he was just filling in, it was for a finite time, but with being cast out, her odds of ever seeing Cat in the office again were pretty slim. She walked to the massive white desk and trailed a finger along the surface, just as softly as she would a lover. She turned to face the balcony and she illuminated the room.

“Of course.”

She opened the door, but hesitated on the threshold. There were two places in her life that had fundamentally changed it: the launch bay on Krypton and this balcony. People would think her over dramatic to compare the two, but losing Cat had completely turned her life upside down and had left her reeling and alone even when she was surrounded with people. Maybe that was why she hadn’t fought harder for her job, maybe that was why she was convincing herself that Mon-El was good for her. Maybe… 

There were too many maybes for her brain to focus on. To quiet her mind, she walked to what she’d had come to think of as her seat and leaned against the arm. It reminded her of standing here with Cat after the Red K. That had been the night she had stopped lying to herself. She’d had feelings for Cat for a long time, but the unconditional forgiveness she had been granted had been beyond what she had hoped for. She’d looked at Cat sipping her drink and it had been so clear in her mind. She loved her. It was as simple as that. She would give up everything she was to get back to that night.

Kara looked up at the city. She really loved the view. It wasn’t comforting anymore. It made her feel small against the enormous ocean of lights and alone. All those lives were lived behind windows she had no access to. She was on the outside, afraid to look in and see she had no place.

Absentmindedly, Kara rubbed her wrist. If this was meant to help her find her way, she didn’t know how it could help her. All the journey had shown her so far was the second home she had lost, this time by her own choices. All it had done was remind her that she missed one person more than she had dared imagine. And she missed Cat. 

At first it had been instantaneous and fierce, like being shot in the gut and she’d felt it almost overwhelmingly. Smiling at Cat and letting her go that night had been agony, but she loved her enough to give her what she needed. She had figured the pain would dim, it hadn’t. Instead, it had morphed from that localized, intense pain to being all pervasive. It left her soul and her heart heavy with a dull suffering that she could function with, but that never went away. She didn’t know which was worse. 

“Kara?”

Startled out of her contemplation, she stood still, convinced that she was hallucinating, or dreaming within her dream as it was.

“Have you lost your hearing along with your common sense and everything I’ve ever taught you?” The insult brought tears to her eyes, not because she felt it was unfair but because it was so purely Cat that it filled all the hollows of her soul. 

She turned toward the voice and her breath caught in her throat.

“Cat,” the name was exhaled like a prayer. Kara was afraid to blink least she disappeared. She was here, she was so beautiful, a vision in black silk and lace. The slip she wore ended a little above mid thigh and the lace slit up to her hip made Kara’s hand tingle with a desire to touch. Her eyes followed the same lace and the thin straps at Cat’s chest and she was parched to taste the skin exposed. In all of her previous dreams, Kara never had had enough imagination to create the vision before her. Without conscious thought, her feet took her to Cat and she traced up from her elbow to her shoulder.

“You’re getting rather bold. Is that part of your new pattern of recklessness?” the disappointment was so clear in Cat’s voice that Kara shrank back.

“I’m not reckless!” the reply came by rote rather than belief. Was she reckless? Had she gambled away her life? “I did the right thing.”

“The right thing? You betrayed me by publishing on a competing platform, you forgot the basic rules of journalism by quoting yourself. You weren’t reporting, you were narrating and manipulating the story to fit your needs, Kara. I taught you better than this.”

“You weren’t there to teach me anything! You left me with him and you let him fire me!”

“Don’t put your choices on me, you know better and I would have fired you myself for what you did. How can you think I wouldn’t?”

Cat’s words wounded Kara and showed her what she had been avoiding looking at: her choices.

“What are you doing, Kara Danvers?”

She hung her head and stared at Cat’s bare feet. She wanted to kneel at those feet and ask to be held, to be forgiven. “I don’t know.”

“Well, that, at least, is obvious,” Cat sighed and stepped forward. She put her forefinger under Kara’s chin. In this world, she was powerless to stop her, but she couldn’t look in her green eyes. “What’s going on with you?”

Kara’s lower lip trembled and she exhaled a tremulous breath. “I’m not the reporter you thought I was.”

“No, you’re not,” the words felt like a stab to Kara and the tears she had  tried to hold back slid down her cheeks. Cat’s thumbs wiped them away. “You never gave yourself the chance to even start on that path and to fight for what you wanted. Your first byline was a story quoting Supergirl. Are you not more than the Cape anymore?”

“It doesn’t feel like I am. It feels like it’s the only thing people want from me,” she whispered one of her fears to Cat, her sense of loss intensifying.

“It might be all they want, but it doesn’t mean you have to give it to them.”

Kara hung her head and leaned forward enough to rest her forehead on Cat’s shoulder. In real life, she wouldn’t dare be so forward but in this dream, it was different. Cat brought an arm around her back and pulled her closer, threading her other hand through messy blond hair.

“I don’t know how not to give it to them. I don’t know how to be just Kara Danvers anymore, there’s nobody who needs just her,” the realization hit Kara hard and she stepped closer to Cat, leaning her weight against her, breathing in the scent of her soap and skin. It was a bit different from during the day, but it sparked a hunger in Kara, as if it was an exotic fruit she’d only discovered now.

The hand in her hair tightened and she felt Cat turn to press a kiss against her temple. “I need Kara Danvers. I need the sunshine, the babbling and bumbling, the goodness and the pushing at my walls. You are extraordinary Kara Danvers. I’ve told you this, but you seemed to have forgotten it.”

“You weren’t there to remind me,” she didn’t mean it as an accusation, but it came out all the same. 

“No, I suppose I wasn’t. But you shouldn’t need me to remind you, you should just know it.” She sounded more exasperated than Kara had feared she would, but Kara couldn’t deny she had made a jumble of things.

“It’s hard to believe when the person who told you left you,”

Air came out of Cat in a rush and she pulled away. “This is what’s really bothering you, isn’t it? That I’m away?”

Kara felt cold without Cat’s arms around her. She stepped closer again but she didn’t dare touch the woman. She brought her hands up to her face and stopped just shy of making contact, as if the distance they were talking about had created an invisible barrier between them.

“It’s not that you are away, it’s that you left me behind without word,” everybody she had ever loved had left her. Cat had seemed so solid and so constant that she had imagined she’d be there always, a north star to keep an eye on so she’d always know where home is. When it had been taken away from her, she’d lost her way.

“You have to understand why I had to leave. I couldn’t hold your hand through this Kara, I would have held you back,” Cat’s voice shook and Kara wondered if she was the only one regretting her choices.

“No, Cat, you would have lifted me up,” she found the courage to cradle the face she loved most in this universe between her hands and she looked into green eyes. “No one believes in me like you do, no one. I didn’t need you to walk the path for me, or even with me, I just needed you to let me know that even if the world out there is better, you still think of me.”

Cat put her hands on hers and squeezed gently. “I miss you every day,” the words slipped from her lips just above a whisper, a confession she hadn’t intended to make.

“Is it worth it? Being away?” Kara needed to know. If this was best for Cat, she could live with it. She had no qualms begging for a text once in a while, but she would give her what she needed.

“I don’t know,” it wasn’t the answer either wanted.

“When will you know?”

“I don’t know, I’m still…” Cat shook her head and she let her hands fall. Kara chased them and put their hands palm to palm, fingers entwined. 

“What do you know?” the question was soft, without animosity.

“That I miss you, that I worry about you, that I want to see you,” Cat looked down, her vulnerability was heartbreakingly beautiful to Kara. 

“I want to see you too, I want to be with you. I don’t care where it is. Let me come to you. Please.”

“Yes,” Cat spoke the words against Kara’s lips, their breaths mingling before their lips touched. Hands and lips were the sole points of contact, but it was enough. Kara felt the cold inside her soul start to thaw, an amber lighting up in a long-neglected fire. The kiss was too soft and ended too soon but Kara didn’t want to put her hands on dream version of Cat, she wanted the real one, solid under her. 

She stepped away, hands still linked. “Give me a minute, I’ll come to you.”

Their hands parted and her heart lurched with fear. She was letting go again, but this time it was to move forward. “I’ll be right there.”

Cat nodded, still on the balcony as Kara walked into the office. She reversed her path to be standing in the middle of CatCo Plaza again. “I’m ready, thank you.”

Her phone pinged and Kara opened her eyes, back on her bed. She looked at the first message from Cat in too many months.

_Royal suite, Four Seasons, Geneva._

Relief spread through Kara’s chest like a balm. She wasn’t alone. Tempted to leave it behind, but aware of the necessity of it, Kara slipped in her suit, ready to fly. She knew her path.

**Author's Note:**

> So, because i'm a horrible human being, this is what i imagine Cat wearing to bed. http://laperla.borderfree.com/us/uscfilpd0019911-bl0060.html
> 
> Insert evil laugh.
> 
> Thanks to @elizadunc for the the beta and not thinking I'm weird when I send her pictures of nightgowns...


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